Kansas leaders angry that questions about detainees aren’t being answered

U.S. Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts on Thursday sought to block a number of President Obama’s government appointments because of reports that Obama is considering putting Guantanamo Bay detainees in Fort Leavenworth.

The two senators, both Republicans, oppose moving foreign terrorist suspects to Fort Leavenworth, and expressed frustration that the Obama administration will not address their questions.

“It really irritates me,” Brownback said, adding he was tired of rumors about the issue and leaks from the administration without being consulted. “This is no way to run a government,” he said.

In January, Obama signed an executive order, promising to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility by the end of 2009.

Last weekend, reports said plans to bring Guantanamo inmates to the U.S. focused on two sites -- Fort Leavenworth, home of the military’s only maximum security prison, and a maximum security prison in Standish, Mich.

Both Roberts and Brownback said such a move could threaten the mission of Fort Leavenworth, which includes the Command and General Staff College.

The college trains military leaders from the U.S. and around the world. Brownback said the governments of Jordan, Pakistan and Egypt have said they would not send trainees to Fort Leavenworth if terrorist suspects were housed there.

Roberts said the fort is the “intellectual center” of the U.S. Army. Incarcerating the “100 worst of the worst” terrorists there would put the fort at risk and possibly the development of future military schools and operations in Leavenworth, he said.

Obama has said Guantanamo needs to be closed because detention of prisoners there for years without trial has been detrimental to U.S. foreign policy.

“There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world,” Obama said in a recent speech. “Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law. In fact, part of the rationale for establishing Guantanamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law -- a proposition that the Supreme Court soundly rejected.”

But Brownback and Roberts said Guantanamo Bay should remain in operation. Roberts said prisoners there had access to better health care there than people in many American communities.

The senators said they have put legislative holds on approximately 10 Obama appointees to senior positions in the departments of defense and justice, the two departments that are dealing with the detainee issue.

The senators have called for a face-to-face meeting with top officials in the defense and justice departments and have said the holds, which would delay Senate consideration of those appointees, could last indefinitely.

Maybe I'm missing something... Does Obama want to give them condos in Leavenworth and a national pardon? I could have sworn the proposal was to put them in one of the nation's heaviest-guarded facilities. If I'm right about the proposal... I don't really see how this is a threat to national or state-side security. Can someone explain that to me? I must be having a "slow" day.

The government either needs to try these men and boys in a court of law (and yes, they are holding boys as young as 12 at Gitmo) or let them go. If they're guilty of something it should be easy to convict them. If they're not guilty of anything they should be freed and reimbursed for their false imprisonment. This is America, and the government can't decide to ignore the law when those in power choose to.

And again, what are you republicans so scared of? I still haven't heard a legitimate reason for why you are so scared.

As someone who has spent a great deal of time working in some of our nations correctional facilities, I can agree that, from a security standpoint, the risk is not any greater to house terrorists than anyone else. If an incident occurs in the prison, it will be contained and eventually subdued. The risk to the staff and other inmates is the same as with all the other scumbags in there, in my opionion. As you pointed out, the only real risk comes from the outside. There is a huge difference between a prison in Leavenworth and Gitmo. Civilans are not able to drive right up to Gitmo, whereas in Leavenworth, anyone can get close. That being said, I am not against them being housed in Kansas.

P.S., Leavenworth does not currently have a Supermax prison. It houses the USDB, Leavenworth Peniteniary (A Level 5 Federal Security Prison) Lansing Correctional Facility, and a Private Prison. I know they are building on the USDB, and it might be a supermax when they are finished (I don't know if that is the intention), but none of the other facilities are considered a Supermax.

It's not the ones inside a prison that is the potential problem. It's their terrorist friends that might want to try to break them out or kill some school children as an attention getter. It makes EVERYONE in KANSAS a TARGET.

Seems to me I recall these two knuckleheads as being major flag wavers in the invasion of Iraq and that Roberts was one of the key intelligence blockers for Bush et al. Well boys you reap what you sow.

Gosh I didn't know any Kansans were this stupid about having terriosts in their own backyard. You are either Obama supporters (and that explains eveything) or you just don't watch the news. Those terriorists indoctrinate the other people that are in jail with them. Then they get out after they are indoctrinated into Radical Islam they start plots agains the USA. Saw it on TV awhile back about one like that. So if you are so stupid then let them come live at your house and be with your family.